Strange Ballet

Some of the greatest poems, like hugely magnificent oil paintings or like elaborate classical symphonies, are not easy to comprehend. Poems like Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” or his “Intimations” Ode or the psychological work Browning does in poems like “Fra Lippo Lippi” or “Andrea del Sarto” are not the matter of a ten-minute read. What you can do, however, if you’d like more great poetry in your life is look upon the great long lyrical poems or the sweeping narrative poems as new friendships. Slowly, gradually, with regular visits, the poem will unfold its aesthetic splendors and its wisdom. Soon it will touch you. Perhaps you begin by appreciating just one phrase—“the still sad music of humanity”. “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?” “I have measured out my life in coffee-spoons.” “Death is the mother of beauty”. “Old age hath yet his honour and his toil”. “Postmen like doctors go from house to house.” “I could say elves to him, but it’s not elves exactly”.

I never much liked Beethoven’s cerebral late quartets when I was young; I preferred the rousing symphonies. I didn’t really see the point of Mark Rothko for years. I had to sit in sundry galleries and be with Rothko’s work for a long time before I could say that I had the fumbling beginnings of an “I’ve got it” moment that has made me want to sit with him again. And I love Beethoven’s late quartets now and cannot imagine how I failed to appreciate the deep comprehension of humanity within them.

I don’t require all the art in the world to be magisterial and profound. Poetry has delights comparable to light music or to a simple sketch. The hook for me can be an odd or intriguing image; a strange group of words that conjures up a response. Some great poems can be like an amuse-bouche, a sonatina giocosa, a sketch of a toucan or a small water-color of a purple fish. I especially enjoy the kinds of poems that I call “strange ballets.” These are poems with a bizarre verbal choreography. Poems that go herkimer-jerkimer. Poems that address the glory of the Triscuit rather than the Trinity. Poems that make sudden lurches, jetés, glissades, a pas de chat, a moonwalk, a dos-a-dos.

Some of the “strange ballets” I love include Gene Kelly in “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” and Fred Astaire doing “Shine on My Shoes.” Similarly, a strange ballet of a poem is riveting if well-executed. It deserves your attention even if it’s just a glance.

I’m going to post a poem that is neither profound, nor great. It’s not brilliant. But it amuses. It’s playful and it’s strange.

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Earthy Anecdote (1923)
Every time the bucks went clattering
Over Oklahoma
A firecat bristled in the way.
Wherever they went,
They went clattering,
Until they swerved
In a swift, circular line
To the right,
because of the firecat.
Or until they swerved
in a swift, circular line
To the left,
Because of the firecat.
The bucks clattered.
The firecat went leaping,
to the right, to the left,
And
Bristled in the way.
Later, the firecat closed his bright eyes
And slept.

By Wallace Stevens

I enjoy the images and the language here. Why is this an “anecdote”? What is a “firecat” anyhow? Why “Oklahoma”? What kind of buck?” Is there but one firecat or do the bucks encounter a firecat wherever they go? Why “earthy?”
Asking such questions of the poem amuses me, but the most important thing is the image: the swerving, the circular lines, the majestic colors of a poem that never mentions color. This poem is indeed a fine and inventive amuse-bouche.

2 thoughts on “Strange Ballet”

The imagery of Stevens’ poem is pure delight, I agree. It reminds me of a nursery rhyme or a Saturday morning cartoon on TV, its charm being in evasion of any factual referents for the jaunty chase and avoidance game.

In recent years snowmobiie-ing has become a very popular sport here in Maine. There is a type of snowmobile called a Firecat; it can sled with great speed and loudness, “bristling” the snows of forests frequented by deer. As I think of that, this poem becomes less fantastic in its imagery and more like an environmentalist’s lament. I can see the mechanical “Firecat” rattling some real clattering bucks…I can even see it eventually dousing its headlights and “gong to sleep.”

Of course, Stevens wrote this poem long before any Firecat snowmobile was in existence. But it’s interesting how poetic images can accumulate new meaning over time.

Thank you for your comment, Cynthia. I did not know about the “Firecat” snowmobile. Images do accumulate new meaning over time as you say. I think I’ve read essays on the influence of TS Eliot on Shakespeare or the influence of James Joyce on “Hamlet”. Authors talk back to their forebears and lluminate them in new ways (sometimes). Why not get a snow-mobile into the mix?

Shh... don't tell anyone I'm poor. They all think I'm living frugal and green just like everyone these days. This is a blog about a senior citizen living a frugal life, on a fixed income, in a low income food desert, and passing along knowledge from lessons learned. Some she learned from her Grandma Mama many years ago and some learned only a few days ago.

Shh... don't tell anyone I'm poor. They all think I'm living frugal and green just like everyone these days. This is a blog about a senior citizen living a frugal life, on a fixed income, in a low income food desert, and passing along knowledge from lessons learned. Some she learned from her Grandma Mama many years ago and some learned only a few days ago.